Wednesday, May 07, 2008

The native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario was hired by dismissed Leafs GM John Ferguson Jr. Ferguson has since been replaced by interim GM Cliff Fletcher, who had been non-committal about Maurice's future with the club.

The Leafs will have a news conference at 3 p.m. later today, and I'll have my eye on that.

This is a surprising move, not because Maurice was fired, as he's coming off two playoff-less seasons, but because Toronto doesn't yet have a new general manager. I find it very hard to believe the organization would want to make this move without any word from Ferguson's potential replacement, which in my mind means we're very close to hearing who the next GM is.

Maurice is relatively popular with the media here, but the fact is that this team underachieved in his two years, finishing with a 76-65-22 record, and he would have likely been turfed by any incoming management. He had a year remaining on his contract.

This move could have been a preemptive strike, with potential GM candidates that have been interviewed thus far indicating they'd want their own coach. Or, maybe more likely, we'll know who the new GM is at 3 p.m.

There are plenty of great coaching candidates available, from Pat Burns to Pat Quinn, Peter DeBoer, Craig Hartsburg, John Anderson, Bob Hartley and potentially even San Jose's Ron Wilson.

Maurice is relatively popular with the media here, but the fact is that this team underachieved in his two years, finishing with a 76-65-22 record, and he would have likely been turfed by any incoming management. He had a year remaining on his contract.

You really believe they underachieved? To me, Mats Sundin is the only reason this team could still sell hope of a playoff birth. Frankly, they had a couple decent players here and there, but a team that is forced to play Chad Kilger as much as they did has some problems.

The team did as much as they could accomplish in 2006-07, but were held back by shoddy goaltending. LAst year, they came back to reality in spite of having solid goaltending.

In Maurice's defense, some nights he only had one line with defensive prowess, and he couldn't play them for the entire third period. And I really don't think this team was as talented as Boston - and that's pretty meager. They had an extended winning run, which was impressive, but pretty much every team in the league went on at least one run this year, including lots of others that missed.

I wanted to like Maurice as a coach, but at the same time there really wasn't much that was positive. There was no consistent effort, no young player development, poor special teams, and the same players tended to get quality ice time regardless of their results. A lot of this is a function of the players he had (and that's why I don't mind at all that he dithered with the line combinations) but surely a better coach could have made a positive influence somewhere.

And he went with Raycroft a lot at the start of the year, which kind of makes me think Maurice is a slow learner...

Oh, I don't think the Marlies' coach would be promoted to the Leafs, I was just wondering who it was.

TSN is reporting that the news conference is just to address the firing of Maurice. I think it's just that the Board feels it's time to give some sort of update to the fans, even though nothing really has changed.

Yes. This could have been a playoff team with someone like Claude Julien running the show.Ah yes, the one year playoff guarantee. Julien is not a long term solution, though. Eventually, his methods stifle progress. Boston will learn this if not next year, then the year after. Lams, quite harshly, noticed the signs early.

Inconsistency is built into the Leafs team. It is not a symptom of the coach, but rather the philosophy that has shaped this team since the Quinn era. I don't blame Maurice for that.

Inconsistency is built into the Leafs team. It is not a symptom of the coach, but rather the philosophy that has shaped this team since the Quinn era. I don't blame Maurice for that.

I hope the next coach is as inconsistent as Pat Quinn. I'd love to see 6 playoff appearances in 7 years, two conference finals, and 5 years with more than 97 points (including 3 over 100) before the bonus point.

Well, last year I saw Boston once in person and TO twice I think. Small sample size, but Boston had a pretty shallow depth too so - goalies aside - comparable. TO were so lack lustre, clumsy, slow etc., it was really not fun to watch. Boston were uptempo and played well as a team. Yes, a better coach could surely do better with the younger players, but what a drag McCabe and other vets will surely be.

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About Me

A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a radio and TV analyst with TSN and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.

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